



^ 



Wit 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

Cnap. Copyright No.. . 

Shelf„.Jlk 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



863/ 8 J3S 



LUXURY AND SACRIFICE 



BY 



f 

CHARLES iV DOLE 

AUTHOR OF "THE COMING PEOPLE," "THE GOLDEN RULE IN 
BUSINESS," "THE AMERICAN CITIZEN," ETC. 



NEW YORK : 46 East Fourteenth Street 

THOMAS Y. CROWELL & COMPANY 

BOSTON : 100 Purchase Street 



31* 






Copyright, 1898, 
By Thomas Y. Crowell & Company. 




2n •'■:■ COPIES BECtIV"* 

189t - sra U ?> <\ 



C j. Peters & Son, TypograpiV-RS, 
Boston. 



TO 



jftg Helpful Mift, 



AND WITH HER TO THE MULTITUDE OF GOOD WOMEN 

WHOSE GROWING AND INTELLIGENT INTEREST 

IN ALL MORAL, SOCIAL, AND RELIGIOUS 

QUESTIONS 

IS THE BRIGHTEST AUGURY OF BETTER DAYS FOR 

OUR WORLD, 

£i)ts Etttle Uoiume 

IS GRATEFULLY DEDICATED. 



Whatever noble ivomen pray for, 
The men are pledged to do. 



INTRODUCTION. 



Out of the noisy disputes and sectarian wranglings 
of many centuries, certain great and simple principles 
shine forth with growing distinctness. They are pecu- 
liarly associated with the name of Christianity, and with 
the remarkable personality of its founder. Jesus stood 
for the " Eeal Presence " of God in this world, as the 
source of its life ; he demonstrated that men might live 
in union or harmony, not only with one another, but 
with God ; he taught that the life of love, or good-will, 
is the realization and perfection of manhood ; he threw 
a new meaning into the Golden Rule, and made it the 
standard and the bond of human society ; by his own 
life and death he established the marvellous doctrine 
that the good man, being the child of God, may trans- 
form all evil into good, and, having borne toil, suffering, 
and pain, may develop stronger faith, warmer love, more 
ardent hope, and abounding life. 

These principles have never as yet been broadly ap- 
plied, or reduced to common practice. They have never 
been even understood by any considerable number of so- 
called Christians. A conventional or ceremonial religion, 
consisting of certain external acts, or involved in various 
rather metaphysical dogmas, has in various forms largely 
taken the place of the beautiful ethical and spiritual re- 
ligion that inspired Jesus, lifted his humble followers to 
a new level of courage and serene happiness, and glowed 
in the earnest devotion and eloquence of Paul. 

The early religious teachers were like men who, we 

5 



INTBODUCTION. 



may suppose, had discovered the secret of the power 
of steam, and had begun to apply it in the days of the 
Pharaohs. But the world was not ready for their great 
invention ; human industry was not well enough organ- 
ized to take it up ; slavery and other barbarisms stood 
in its way ; " the age of steel " was still in the future. 
So the world failed to perceive Jesus' secret of life. 
Men's minds were still full of prejudices and supersti- 
tions. The early Christianity was confused with the 
strange notions of the times. There was neither science 
nor philosophy mature enough to co-operate with the re- 
ligion of the beneficent God and the Golden Eule. 

The new religion appeared at first as an element of 
antagonism in the world. To the minds of primitive 
men a vast dualism seemed to offer itself, both in nature 
and in all human conduct. Christianity came into the 
world to wage war on evil. " The world, the flesh, and 
the devil" was the evil trinity against which the sons 
and daughters of God were called to contend. Real life 
was rather to be expected in another existence than actu- 
ally to be found here. This earth at its best was a school 
of probation. With such a conception of the earthly 
life, the attitude of the Christian before the practical 
problems of civilization was naturally that of suspicion 
and hostility. 

The processes of ancient civilization, the slave-system 
of industry, the art and the music, the theatre and the 
arena, the literature, the government, in the world of the 
Caesars, could hardly have been recognized by the plain 
Christian as in any sense the movement of ideal and 
spiritual forces. The civilization of Eome and Byzan- 
tium was, in his eyes, a colossal display of the allure- 
ments and temptations of the Evil One. 



INTRODUCTION. 7 

The noblest and most religious minds stand to-day in 
a new attitude with regard to the problems of civiliza- 
tion. While we recognize the animalism and barbarism 
in our world, we proceed to our tasks without a fear or 
even a haunting thought of the presence of a devil. We 
have ceased to think of our senses or our bodies as ene- 
mies lurking to betray us ; we hold them to be our ser- 
vants to command. We say, " All good things are ours, 
nor soul helps flesh more now than flesh helps soul." 
This is to believe that the world is God's world. Our 
work is not to fight it, so much as to control and use 
it. This involves a new application of the principles 
of religion. It is nothing less than to win over to the 
acknowledged area of beneficence and human service 
all the complex processes of civilization, — the arts and 
industries, literature and the drama, amusements and 
recreation. It is also to enter the realm of politics, 
and to pervade all the functions of the state with a 
wise and righteous friendliness. The government must 
be made the expression of the organized good-will of the 
people. We are fairly beginning to see that we have in 
Christianity, in the broadest and most universal sense 
of the word, a force capable of harmonizing and bringing 
into unity all the diverse elements both of individual and 
of social life. 

It is my wish in this little book to illustrate the prac- 
tical working of our fundamental religious principles, 
with respect to the important and difficult problem of 
luxury. If it is possible to render the use of luxury 
beneficent, there is nothing that we cannot likewise con- 
vert into the means of human welfare. 

I am aware that luxury is to a considerable extent at 
present the result of the inequality in men's industrial 



8 INTRODUCTION. 

and social condition. It is involved with the existence 
of private property. The abolition of all private prop- 
erty, however, if this were wise and right, would not, 
as we shall see, remove luxury from the world. The 
question would still arise, how it should be distributed 
and controlled. I shall assume here that, at least for a 
long time to come, we must contemplate more or less in- 
equality of human condition. This is true, whether we 
like it or not. Among all the plans for social improve- 
ment before the world, there is none that opens any 
practicable way for lifting millions of mankind, or even 
the millions of the most favored country of the world, 
immediately to a uniformity of outward condition. It 
is not merely true that some now are allowed to hold 
more than others ; the services of some are socially far 
more precious than the services of others ; moreover, the 
needs of some are much greater than the needs of others. 
The skilled scientific investigator, or the gifted singer, 
like Patti, for instance, requires much more of the 
world than the average farm laborer. So far, then, as 
the existence of luxury is dependent upon inequality of 
income, we are obliged to face this as a fact that may 
indeed be considerably modified, but cannot be abolished 
altogether. Our problem is nothing less than the prac- 
tical application of the highest teachings of our religion 
to existing facts. Can the good and true man, the man 
who honestly loves his fellows, safely and generously 
use and handle luxury ? If so, how can he do this 
without growing idle and selfish? And, finally, how 
shall we actually combine the free use of the growing 
wealth of the world with the great ancient and profound 
thought of sacrifice, without which religion itself would 
cease to hold earnest men's respect ? 



LUXURY AND SACRIFICE. 



I. 

The Growing The righteous handling of luxury is a 
Tide op subject that has baffled earnest minds since 

men began to think. What is luxury ? It 
is not easy exactly to define it. The luxuries of one age 
have often become the mere comforts, or even necessities, 
of a later generation. Window-glass, for example, once 
a costly symbol of wealth, and the subject of special 
taxation, is now found everywhere except among half- 
civilized peoples. The vast middle class in England and 
America are doubtless better housed and clothed and fed 
than the aristocrats of the fourteenth century. 

Moreover, the people of the same community do not 
agree as to what constitutes luxury. To many plenty 
of domestic service would appear to be luxury ; to others 
ample service seems to be a daily necessity, without 
which life would hardly be worth living. 

In a large way, however, we all know quite well what 
we mean by luxuries. We mean grand houses, costly 
furniture, private libraries, paintings and statues ; ele- 
gant dinners, with many courses, flowers, and beautiful 
table-ware and plate ; yachts and horses and carriages ; 
theatre and opera tickets, and the best concerts ; rich 
dress, silks and lace, gold, jewels, and ornaments. We 
may include also the advantages of thorough education 

9 



10 LUXURY AND SACRIFICE. 

and culture, with free opportunity to travel at home and 
abroad. 

The average American household probably has not six 
hundred dollars a year. The man's tobacco and beer, 
the woman's cup of tea, an occasional holiday in the 
public park, a cheap seat at the theatre, — such things 
as- these are the luxuries of multitudes. By comparison 
the favored minority, who spend incomes of thousands 
of dollars a year, may be said to constitute a luxurious 
class. 

What must thoughtful and humane men say of all 
this vast and growing tide of luxury ? There is a dis- 
tinctly narrow answer to this question, to which our 
sympathies often incline us. As we see the splendid 
palaces in a great city, New York or Paris or London, 
the lavish entertainments, banquets, balls, and weddings, 
the display and pomp, the liveries and equipages, and 
then visit the squalid tenement-houses only a few blocks 
away, where the poor are crowded by thousands, the 
contrast seems too terrible to contemplate. Here are 
women earning by toilsome days less, we are told, than 
a dollar a week. Here are children brought up to the 
constant sight of vice. Grant that multitudes get some- 
thing of net gain out of this burdensome struggle ; grant 
that human nature, in its genuine qualities of virtue, 
fidelity, and heroism, asserts itself often splendidly amid 
the most dismal surroundings ; grant that the roots of 
human happiness are quite independent of circumstances, 
and that the good God bids little children play as joy- 
ously in dingy alleys as in a nobleman's park; grant 
also that our grand system of public schools is surely 
working to lift the standard of life in every dark corner 
of a city : nevertheless, the stern question forces itself 




LUXURY AND SACRIFICE. 11 

upon us ; what right have any set of men or women to 
pour out expense on their own enjoyments, to eat and 
drink the wealth of the world, while just around the 
corner colossal needs call for relief, and wrongs go 
unredressed ? What right have people who worship 
on Sunday in the richly upholstered pews of elegant 
churches to call themselves " Christians," the disciples 
of the greatest friend of the poor, a poor man himself, 
whose gospel was a doctrine of brotherhood, while the 
poor do not appear and scarcely are welcome in the same 
luxurious churches ? 

Is it surprising that some are tempted in their mingled 
indignation and sympathy to cry out against all this 
show of luxury as unseemly and evil ? Is it strange 
if many who look on are angry and bitter, and threaten 
social revolution ? Let men first minister with their 
money to actual human necessities, and let them at least 
postpone their self-indulgences while the cry of the poor 
is so loud. 

The free enjoyment of luxury not only seems to be a 
wrong to the poor, who need the very things — decent 
houses, wholesome food, education — which the money 
expended in extravagance might purchase for them ; the 
use of luxury is also claimed to be most demoralizing to 
the luxurious class, and especially to their children. It 
was said of the young men of the wealthy set in a Xew 
England town, that only one of them escaped "as by 
fire " from the grim fate of worthlessness, insanity, or 
early death that pursued them all. Every one has 
heard of similar groups of young men, representing " the 
best families." We all know that the worst possible ed- 
ucation for a child is to be brought up to be idle, to be 
waited upon, and to have plenty of money to spend. 



12 LUXURY AND SACRIFICE. 

So much for the revulsion of feeling with which, in 
view of the extreme facts of the contrast between 
wealth and poverty, we are tempted to turn against lux- 
ury. We are almost persuaded to revolt against an order 
of society that permits luxury. Our sympathies range 
us, for the moment at least, with the austere and ascetic 
Savonarolas — the opponents of all mundane pleasure. 
We feel rebuked for the selfishness with which we may 
have set our eyes on the pomps and vanities of the world. 

Who are the good and wise ascetics, however, to solve 
the problems of practical duty which they so easily 
raise ? Who that decries luxury in general is consist- 
ent enough to have no use for it himself ? Who will 
draw the nice line that separates the good and true man's 
necessities — his immaculate linen, his open fireplace, his 
books and pictures — from mere vain self-indulgence ? 
The truth is, no Puritan majority can vote the fact 
of luxury out of the world. On the contrary, it seems 
to be a necessary element of life. Like all other ele- 
ments, it is not to be summarily condemned because 
some men have too much of it. It may, indeed, be 
likened to the adipose tissue of the body. The well- 
made body does not consist merely of bones and muscles 
and brain ; there is health in plump and ruddy cheeks, 
and a certain proportion of fat in the system. True 
human life likewise insists upon keeping all the mate- 
rials with which we are set to construct the temple of 
civilization. As we learn to find new uses for the waste 
and by-products of our mills and mines, and as we thus 
add material wealth to the common store, so out of all 
the materials of human life we are set to learn the 
higher uses, and to convert what was once " waste " into 
worth and value. 



LUXUBY AND SACRIFICE. 13 



II. 



The Apolo- Let us frankly face certain claims that 

Luxury* 1 ^ ie ^ r ^ en ^ s anc * defenders of the luxuries 
are sure to make. These claims may not 
at first appeal to our sympathies, but they are very 
interesting; they involve profoundly humane consider- 
ations, they have reason in them, and they are as need- 
ful to our full understanding of the subject as are the 
just complaints from the other side. 

In the first place, we are reminded that the poor 
would be the last to ask us to banish luxury from their 
sight. Why do men so strongly desire to live in the 
great cities ? It is because they love to see the show, 
the display, the grand windows full of beautiful things, 
the ceaseless procession of wealth, the magnificent build- 
ings. It is doubtful if the poorest half of the population 
of New York would vote to-day to tax out of existence 
the gorgeous turnouts in Fifth Avenue, or the steam 
yachts on the bay. Who will say that the very poor in 
London would not vote to keep royalty and the House 
of Lords ? 

Moreover, as we have seen, the poor have their own 
relative luxuries. We suspect that they pay more heav- 
ily than the rich for their luxuries, and bear, therefore, 
a more severe weight of taxation. Their dream and 
their hope is that they or their children may one day 
ride also in carriages, and dine in elegant club-houses. 
This may be an unworthy and material dream, we may 
condemn it as contrary to the ideal of true human pro- 
gress. But multitudes cherish such dreams as this. 
They do not wish to abolish luxuries ; they wish to bring 
them within their reach, they wish to enjoy them. 



14 LUXURY AND SACRIFICE. 

We are brought at once to a great economic claim in 
behalf of luxury. Luxury, we are told, is the prize of 
efficient and successful effort. Give the worker enough 
surplus of earnings to be able to buy a treat for himself, 
— a Sunday dinner, or a drive into the country, — and 
he will put the energy of hope into his labor. The boy 
from the farm or the little village among the hills sees 
in the great houses, the display, and the liveries, the 
sumptuous entertainments, so many glittering prizes, to 
stir his ambition. Here is the stimulus of inventive 
and organizing genius. Thousands of men struggle for 
the prize, and put forth all their activity. Meantime, 
out of their myriad efforts, vast factories rise, new and 
more perfect machinery is set to work, power is brought 
out of the depths of the earth, systems of industry are 
co-ordinated and economized, the wheat-fields of Dakota 
are turned into garden-spots for New York and London, 
the Old World nightmare of famine becomes a mere de- 
tail of history. Lo ! out of this ceaseless pursuit of 
the prizes of luxury, the poor are better fed and housed 
and clothed. Grant that the grand dividend of the 
labor of the world is not yet fairly distributed. Never- 
theless, as a rule, all work harder, almost necessarily 
produce more, and on 'the whole actually receive more, 
because there are splendid prizes to which men lift up 
their eyes, and which a few men are seen actually to 
win. Would these captains of industry, these inventors, 
these promoters of gigantic corporations, work so hard 
and conquer such arduous undertakings, if they saw 
at the end of the race nothing more substantial than Mr. 
Bellamy's proposed decorations of honor, or if they had 
to content themselves with the inward satisfaction of 
duty well performed ? Those of us who believe most 



LUXURY AND SACRIFICE. 15 

fully in the divine possibilities of our common manhood 
can at least easily forgive those who doubt whether men 
are either intelligent or good enough as yet to dispense 

v swith the tangible prizes of effort. Surely one way in 
which men learn the higher values of life is through 
habits of self-control gained by handling for themselves 
the material values. The good things of life are like 
the counters by the use of which the children learn 
numbers. The gospel of progress for a childish people, 
like the blacks in the South, may lie in the quite prosaic 
industrial duty of getting money and houses and lands. 
The grander doctrine of the co-operative commonwealth 
rises out of discipline learned through the winning and 
the possession of individual wealth. May there not be 
an important truth here for all our social reformers ? 

yr The defenders of luxury make a further claim. They 
show us that the pomp and the flaunting banners of 
wealth are the symbols that lead the march of true civ- 
ilization. As the athletic group in a university, while 
often overdoing physical exercise, exaggerating its rela- 
tive value, and making themselves ridiculous by their 
one-sided devotion to it, yet set the pace for all their 
fellow-students, arouse and maintain a wholesome in- 
terest in manly sports, and raise the average of health 
for thousands of young men ; so in a different way the 
luxurious class, though with serious loss to their own 
best development, with the sacrifice of happiness, with 
real injury to their children through their exaggeration 
and excess, yet mark the way where the many are bet- 
ter and happier for following. The average demand 
for all that makes civilization is increased. Because 
the rich live in palaces, multitudes, imitating them at a 
safe distance, possess ampler houses, Because the rich 



16 LUXURY AND SACRIFICE. 

have lawns, parks, and greenhouses, the poor take the 
more pains to keep their streets clean, and flowers are 
seen in every window. The wealthy buy costly paint- 
ings, and straightway the same paintings are reproduced 
for the millions. The rich man's carriage becomes the 
model after which railway cars are built for all men to 
ride in. Already certain modern States and cities lay 
out forests and public gardens on a scale with which 
princes can hardly compete, while the municipal libraries 
and art museums outstrip the grandest private collec- 
tions. Thus the few take the lead, investigate and 
experiment with the good things of the world ; and the 
multitude, following after, reap the advantage. It may 
even be claimed, that in numerous instances, the many 
would not have known what was good, if the few had 
not first made the discovery, and set the new fashion, 
and so instituted the demand on which the larger supply 
speedily follows. Thus the whole world grows rich in 
the appliances of civilization. 

One more ingenious claim is made on account of the 
benefit that the luxurious class confers upon the poor. 
Whatever the rich spend, even for the most extravagant 
and useless entertainment and display, must be distrib- 
uted in some form in wages to the poor. An army of 
people have constant maintenance in the service of the 
wealthy. In other words, luxury makes an enormous 
increase of labor and employment. Cut off all the cost 
of grand dinners and greenhouse flowers, of fancy balls, 
gorgeous dress, and jewels, of horses and yachts, and 
you would cut off the living of more people than you 
imagine. 

Perhaps this consideration hardly bears careful scru- 
tiny. If waste and extravagance distribute wages and 



LUXURY AND SACRIFICE. 17 

furnish employment, so also do fire and shipwreck and 
war. Is it a good thing to eat and drink ten thousand 
dollars worth of human labor in a single half-barbaric 
feast ? Why is it not also a good thing that a house 
burns down, and likewise distributes the insurance 
money among men who need work ? 

It must be confessed that waste is waste, whatever 
be the form in which the results of men's toil are con- 
sumed. Let self-indulgence be frank with itself, and not 
profess to urge as its justification the love of the poor, 
or the desire to distribute its money in charity. If the 
rich man wishes to spend wages in building a palace, he 
is not confined to the necessity of building for his own 
ostentation. However he employs his money, whether 
he spends or invests it, he must distribute it. The lavish 
use of costly wines distributes money. The erection of 
improved working-men's cottages distributes money. But 
the one use may waste like a fire, while the other stores 
up good for generations. 

There is, however, a measure of truth in the claim 
that the rich accidentally help the poor, even by the very 
excess of their luxuries. We do not yet know how to 
use all the surplus labor of the nation. We do not pro- 
duce any less wheat or cotton cloth because of the army 
of labor that waits upon the luxuries of the rich. It is 
better to have all these employed, though their labor re- 
sults in little permanent value to the life of the nation, 
than it would be to keep them in idleness. By and by 
we may learn to employ the labor of the world more 
economically ; but till we learn to do so better than now, 
it is probable that the sum of the productive labor of 
the world is not less, but a little more, on account of the 
demands made in behalf of luxury. If this is true, it 



\ 



18 LUXURY AND SACRIFICE. 

needs to be also clearly stated that it is a confession of 
weakness and the want of real civilization. It is no 
reason why we should not try to find better, saner, and 
more humane methods of employing labor. 



in. 

What are Mere economical considerations soon weary 
Luxuries? ug> We need t0 lift up our eyeg t0 the llillg 

and the stars, and so to raise our problem to the range 
of ethical and humane principles. 

There is one general characteristic that describes all 
luxuries. A luxury is that of which " there is not 
enough to go around," as we say. The supply is limited. 
Either only a few can possess it at all, as, for instance, 
a beautiful painting, or if it is a thing which many can 
enjoy, there is a limitation upon their use of it. They 
must take turns in enjoying it ; or they must exercise a 
certain self-restraint, or else do a wrong to others. The 
luxury is that of which there is not enough for every 
one to use all the time, or as much as he pleases. 

The luxury thus has the quality of an exceptional 
enjoyment. A simple illustration is in the case of the 
little stock of jellies and preserves which the frugal 
country housewife used to store away for the year. 
There was not enough of these preserves for use every 
day. There was not enough, when the special treat was 
brought on, for every schoolboy to help himself to as 
much as he pleased. The very limited supply made the 
preserves a luxury. 

It is obvious that this limited and exceptional charac- 
ter of the luxury ought not to debar its use. Here is a 
good thing, not, therefore, to be thrown away because, it 



LUXURY AND SACRIFICE. 19 

is an exceptional good. Those who must go without are 
no worse off because some possess it. Not all men can 
live on the corner lot, or on the crown of the hill. Not 
all women can wear diamonds, or possess ancestral furni- 
ture brought over in the Mayflower. It is good to have 
the rare book in the public library, even if some one 
who wants to read it has to wait a long time, or does not 
draw it at all. With respect to a considerable class of 
good things, those of us who do not have them are at least 
no poorer because certain more fortunate persons possess 
them. These others do not necessarily possess them at 
our loss. If we cannot have them, we should cheerfully 
vote that some one should get the benefit of them. The 
world is richer so. 

Luxuries in this respect may be likened to certain 
special gifts of beauty, talent, skill, or genius. There 
are only a few really beautiful persons in a town ; there 
are only a few men of genius in a century ; high skill is 
not very abundant. But all of us who are common men 
and women would gladly choose to see men and women 
among us more gifted than we are. We are all richer 
and better for their existence. So we say with regard 
to the luxuries. AVhatever is good we wish to keep in 
the world. If we cannot have it for ourselves, we are 
glad that some other man has it. The luxuries are here 
to be possessed, handled, and enjoyed. Out of a better 
use and enjoyment of them we are to w T in a nobler human 
development. 

We are ready now to discern the principle in the light 
of which luxuries must henceforth be considered and ad- 
ministered. Here is a class of enjoyments that are more 
or less exceptional and limited. Not all can have them ; 
but the few are herein lifted, at least for the moment, 



20 LUXURY AND SACRIFICE. 

upon the toiling shoulders of the many. If we could 
think of men as only animals, or slaves, or machines, 
this fact might have no special significance. But as soon 
as we realize that men are brothers, of one blood and 
one nature, the fact that the many are without that 
which some of us possess, or are at work while we are 
enjoying ourselves, gives our pleasure a quality that may 
truly be described as sacred. 

The story is told that when King David was belea- 
guered by the Philistines close to the home of his boy- 
hood, weary and thirsty, he sighed for water from the 
well by the gate in Bethlehem. The well was in the 
hands of the enemy ; and his mighty men, at the risk 
of their lives, broke through the lines, drew water from 
the well, and brought it to the king. The king could not 
think that this was mere ordinary water. It was equiv- 
alent to the blood of brave men. He would not even 
drink it himself, but poured it out as a libation to God. 
This story is a parable to illustrate the sacred character 
of luxury. 

Luxury represents more or less the labor, the risk, 
the sacrifice, perhaps even the life, of men. As a rule 
it has been bought with human toil. It may be foolish, 
like David, to pour out the precious water on the ground ; 
but it is at least fair, humane, and truthful for the man 
who enjoys an income of ten thousand dollars a year to 
reflect upon what it means to have control over as much 
as the sum of the work of twenty average laborers ! 
Surely that is sacred which the one only may have, 
while the many may be suffering real want. 

Sometimes the luxury bears an obviously sacramental 
quality. The frugal housewife did not put up her jel- 
lies for the strong and well, but with kindly forethought 



LUXURY AND SACRIFICE. 21 

for the sick, the aged, and the convalescent, or as her 
compliment to an occasional guest, or for the rare joy of 
the family reunion at Thanksgiving time. The valid 
justification for many a luxury, like the woman's alabas- 
ter box of ointment in the story of Jesus, is that it is a 
pure sacrifice for love's sake. To accept or to use it in 
greed or selfishness would be a species of sacrilege. 

The nation sets its chief magistrate in the White 
House, and surrounds him with a certain magnificence. 
It is in the same spirit, and with the same significance, 
as when, in old times, they consecrated a king. The 
President does not belong to himself, but to the people, 
of the United States. The generous service, the flowers, 
and the ample rooms of the White House represent the 
good-will and the dignity of the people. A shame on 
the magistrate, high or low, who does not see that his 
place and belongings, his salary and emoluments, are 
sacred to the people who give them. 



IY. 

Noblesse We come at once to the sight of certain 
Oblige. simple conditions that govern the use of the 
luxuries. The first condition is modesty. A shallow 
mind might indeed interpret the fact of his being lifted 
above the heads of his fellows to some rare sight of 
enjoyment, into the terms of pride and egotism. u See 
me/' the vain man might cry out ; " behold I am greater 
and higher than others ! " Surely no true man, reading 
the facts of life, can harbor such conceit. " Who am I," 
says the just man, "that I should be surrounded with 
beautiful things, that I should possess abundance of 
power, that the opportunities of the world should be 



22 LUXURY AND SACRIFICE'. 

open before me ? Do I deserve gratifications which 
multitudes never begin to realize ? " In a world where 
the noblest and best have often had to go hungry and to 
suffer, and the cross has been the symbol of goodness, 
how can any man dare to give the free rein to easy 
indulgence ? 

Truthfulness and modesty, in fact, serve to steer a 
man away from all excess in luxury. The modest man 
would not wish to build himself a palace, even if he 
could afford the expense. He does not believe that a 
palace fits the state of the private citizen. The modest 
man, however rich, does not desire pomp and display 
around him. He cannot bear that the sight of his en- 
tertainments shall make a Lazarus at his door envious 
and bitter, or that the splendor of his equipage or his 
yacht shall mark the contrast of the squalor of tene- 
ment-houses. Modesty sees no fitness in show and ex- 
travagance. Intelligence discerns in many a modern 
metropolis merely the glittering survival of barbaric 
egotism. 

A second consideration that impresses every one who, 
while enjoying his luxuries, sees in them the sacred ele- 
ment of human cost, is the duty of increased efficiency 
which their cost commands. Does the great world, in 
whatever mysterious, haphazard manner, pick me out of 
the millions, and let me ride in a carriage and sail in a 
grand steam-yacht ? Does it send me to the seashore or 
to the mountains for my vacation ? Does it allow me to 
travel like a prince around the world, to see beautiful 
cities, their museums and their masterworks of art and 
genius, to make the acquaintance of notable men, to be- 
hold stupendous Alpine or Himalayan scenery ? Here is 
a solemn bond imposed upon me, to be a man worthy of 



LUXURY AND SACRIFICE. 23 

all this splendid expenditure. God forbid that I should 
have the face to enjoy and absorb, and to give noth- 
ing back. God forbid, if the world asks any service of 
me, that I should be so mean as to refuse. Show me 
rather what I can do to repay the world and mankind 
for what I have consumed. 

Suppose, again, that I am one out of the thousand to 
whom the prize of a university education has fallen. 
While the multitude were bending at their toil, I was 
living in the refined atmosphere of the books and the 
learning of the ages. Others worked, and I nourished 
my mind through years of delightful companionship. 
Surely I am under a bond for the rest of my life to be 
efficient in human service, beyond the thousand others 
who had never one-tenth part of my golden opportuni- 
ties. God put me to shame well deserved, if I ever sit 
down content still to draw on the toilers of the earth for 
my living, and do not try to give back what my educa- 
tion has cost. My education is as sacred a thing as the 
water purchased by men's blood at the well of Bethlehem. 

Suppose, on the other hand, the case of the poor man, 
whose wife and children go scant of bare comforts that 
he may have his little luxury of tobacco or beer. Sup- 
pose, then, that, taking his luxury, he is a worse man 
and not a better. Suppose that he is surly, self-willed, 
domineering, and selfish. What right has he to a morsel 
of luxury that is not turned over into making him a more 
affectionate and generous husband and father ? What 
good is there in his luxury, if, after it is consumed, he 
is less of a man, less efficient and less human, than if he 
had let it alone ? 

A practical working test is established at once whereby 
barbarous or injurious luxury is distinguished and cut off. 



24 LUXURY AND SACRIFICE, 

What article, if any, among our possessions is pro- 
duced under such conditions as to prostitute human 
labor ? What luxury, if any, do we demand which 
hurts the character of men to supply ? Are there en- 
tertainments, the real result of which is to make those 
who participate in them worse men and women ? Are 
there costly habits which almost of necessity tend to 
greed or sensuality ? Will good women wear plumage, 
every dollar of the cost of which is the price of the destruc- 
tion of beautiful birds, and the hardening of the hearts 
of the boys and men who murder them ? What if the 
social use of wine has come to mean a vast annual dete- 
rioration of the manhood of a people ? What shall we 
judge of the luxury the use of which involves the ruined 
homes of many thousand sorrowful wives and children ? 
Or, again, are people really civilized whose approval 
makes the demand for the ballet at the theatre ? Is it 
good for any girls to devote their lives to a kind of dance 
which most of those who witness would think it shame- 
ful for their own girls to practise ? Whatever the an- 
swer to these questions, all must agree that we have 
no right to any luxury, the use of which on the whole 
results in the lowering of the manhood or womanhood 
of those who provide or indulge in it. 

The law of efficiency holds even with the invalids and 
the aged. You send the sick friend your delicacies ; you 
surround her bed with comforts and tender care ; you 
bid physicians and nurses to wait upon her. It is a 
call to her honor and her love, first, to summon all the 
life in her to get well if she can, to cease from making 
this heavy draught needful upon the costly hospital 
stores of the world ; but next, if recovery is hopeless, 
every friendly attention, every dish of rare fruit, every 



LUXURY AND SACRIFICE. 25 

vase of roses, is a new call to be brave and cheerful to 
the last breath, and not to let her pain fall as a weight 
on the hearts of her friends. Thus luxuries are trans- 
lated into the efficient terms of faith, hope, and love. 

We get here a word of illumination about the use of 
the great city churches, their rich and beautiful music, 
their lavish scale of expense. Shall we rule these things 
out as unsuitable to the spirit of religion ? Shall we 
bid men worship in bare upper rooms and build no more 
church organs ? We answer with no negative word. We 
simply say that the magnificent churches impose a cor- 
responding and tremendous obligation upon those who 
enjoy them. The more harmonious the service, the more 
noble the worship, the more persuasive and tender the 
gospel preached, so much the more commanding is the 
bond upon the men and women who enjoy the beauty 
and inspiration of a faith that kings and prophets only 
dimly saw in their dreams, to go forth to do the deeds 
and speak the words fitting such a religion. Whereas 
men once suffered and went to the stake for their reli- 
gion, they now make their worship the occasion for an 
hour of luxurious delight. God save them if they do 
not straightway turn over this costly delight, God-given, 
into efficient and loving service of humanity ! So far 
as they cannot or will not do this, the name of their 
churches obviously becomes a shame and a mockery. 

Mr. Kipling in his Jungle Book has an admirable 
story, " Kikki-Tikki-Tavi," that illustrates the relation 
of luxury to efficiency. The little mongoose is exceed- 
ingly fond of dainties, bananas, meat, and eggs ; neither 
has he any conscience against eating them. He has 
just distinguished himself in his master's house by kill- 
ing a dangerous snake. The family wish to reward 



26 LUXURY AND SACRIFICE. 

him with, all the good things from the dinner-table. 
But the mongoose has still serious duties before him. 
There are other snakes to be killed immediately ; he 
must therefore for the present starve himself, and so 
keep a clear head for his work. Animal that he is, he 
refuses to touch his master's dainties. The story shows 
what real self-restraint is. It is not a merely negative 
thing ; it is not useless denial of self. It has a positive 
purpose. There is always a question of reaching the 
highest human efficiency. Who has not enough of the 
feeling of the athlete, not to say " the spirit of Christ," 
to appreciate this ? If our luxury threatens to cut 
down our working power, if it spoils the balance of 
nerves or brain, if it saps the moral judgment, if it thus 
makes beasts or slaves of us, we remember how Mr. 
Kipling's excellent little mongoose would not taste a 
dainty morsel of food till his work was accomplished ; 
and his superb self-control saved all the lives in the 
household. 



Luxury and We ought now to agree that luxuries are 
the Common g 00( j ^ snare ^ to distribute, to spread abroad. 
In this view luxuries may take on a whole- 
some and ennobling significance. The great question 
now is, how can our luxuries be lifted out of the selfish, 
egotistic, and barbaric level to the new thought of a 
common wealth ? To co-operate efficiently in work is to 
become civilized. To share also as widely as possible 
in the results of the common labor is the fulfilment 
of civilization. It is a characteristic of barbaric luxury 
that its narrow use ministers to egotism and pride. Its 
enjoyment marks its possessor as separate from others. 



LUXURY AND SACRIFICE. 27 

A private park, a grand retinue of needless servants, or 
the wearing of costly and conspicuous jewellery, is an 
example of such uncivilized luxury. The very intent is 
to establish a special privilege or a monopoly from 
which the many are shut off. It is the pleasure of the 
half-civilized mind to be exclusive. 

This is the nature of all ostentatious display, of lavish 
self-indulgence, of extravagant feasting. The luxuries 
of the beneficent, on the contrary, never separate their 
fortunate possessors from the common life of mankind. 
The intent of enlightened men is that their pleasures 
shall be extended to the largest possible number. They 
do not wish to be exclusive in their enjoyment. They 
would like to have all enabled to enter into the same 
kind of pleasure. What inhumanity to desire anything 
else ! In their hands, therefore, the same luxury that, 
used only for egotism, bars its owner apart, and breeds 
envy in the hearts of the needy beholders, becomes a 
means to enrich many lives, and to bind men together in 
sympathy. 

Thus it has been the special function of wealth to 
foster art, literature, and music. There are no luxuries 
more ennobling than beautiful pictures. There are few 
delights greater than exquisite and costly music. In 
these, the purest of all luxuries, is an almost endless ca- 
pacity for the sharing and extending of delight. It is not 
merely stupid waste and shame to buy the rare painting 
and lock it up in one's own private gallery, but it is a 
sort of robbery not to share the delight of the beautiful 
thing with the thousands for whose sake, like a work 
of nature, the good God had inspired it. Wealth has so 
far been slow and dull in realizing its opportunities in 
this direction. It is beginning to be enlightened enough 



28 LUXURY AND SACRIFICE, 

to know how to get its money's worth out of its luxuries. 
Let it build Palaces of Delight for the people alongside 
of the workshops and factories ; let it dot the land with 
public libraries in every village; let it bring concerts 
and theatres within reach of the poor ; let it erect school- 
houses and colleges, and establish scholarships ; let it 
throw open beautiful grounds and gardens to the people ; 
let it not venture in selfish exclusiveness to shut off its 
walks on the shore of the sea, or the glorious views of 
the hills ; let it send its carriages to take the invalids 
to drive. Wealth is on trial for its good behavior. For 
every consideration of justice and humanity, the posses- 
sors of wealth must see to it that they share and dis- 
n^ tribute as well as enjoy. 

VI. 

What the The foregoing section probably seems plain 
Selfish enough to the larger number of readers. It 

XT a TTW r PQ 

Say * s P er; f ec tly plain to those who have no prop- 

erty themselves. It is obvious as to the re- 
sponsibility of other people. It is conclusive to any 
one who looks at life for a moment from the Christian 
or humanitarian point of view. We must not forget, 
however, that up to the present time it has been very 
uncommon for men to consider wealth from this point 
of view, except on Sunday, or in books, or with respect 
to the duties of one's neighbors. The difficulty is in 
applying this simple doctrine of wealth to one's own 
case. The Anglo-Saxon mind, through long-established 
custom, traditions, and law, tends toward a specially 
tenacious and exclusive sense of private and personal 
rights over property. Men still need to be converted 
to see and to realize the splendid and inexorable truth 



LUXURY AND SACRIFICE. 29 

of our doctrine that wealth and luxury are sacred. 
"Have I not a right/' we hear men say, "to do what 
I please with my own ? I inherited my fortune, or I 
earned it with my own labor ; it is mine. I propose to 
spend it in my own way. If I like to wear diamonds, 
or to drink choice wines, or to keep my strip of land by 
the sea clear of intruders, or to shut up my pictures for 
my family and my friends, or to put a lock on my pew- 
door, no one has any business to criticise my conduct. 
I pay for my luxuries. " If men do not say this in 
words, they say it often in acts. 

One wonders how any intelligent man dares to say 
of the whole of his fortune, " This is mine by clear moral 
right." The network of industrial relations is too com- 
plicated to allow any man to be sure how large a part 
of what he legally lays claim to is strictly and fairly 
his own. Take the case of inherited wealth. By what 
righteous standard does its owner inherit a right to 
draw upon the labor of thousands of men, or to eat and 
drink at a single feast the net results of many days of 
their toil ? Men, indeed, once believed that they had a 
similar right by inheritance to rule a city or a kingdom. 
The world has slowly come to doubt the claim of its 
self-made lines of princes, and has found out that their 
inheritance of political power is against the true inter- 
ests of society. Surely the laws of the inheritance of 
money power, whether wise or foolish, exist to-day only 
by the good will and consent of the people. There can 
be no " natural right " by which the grandson of a slave- 
trader, a brewer, a fortunate speculator, the lucky pos- 
sessor of a farm within the limits of a growing town, 
shall hold a perpetual mortgage over the land, the houses 
and ships, the wharves, the industrial tools, and even the 



30 LUXURY AND SACRIFICE. 

steam and electrical power on which, the lives of a mil- 
lion men depend. 

Suppose, now, the man says, " I earned and saved this 
property myself." Yes, but by the co-operation of the 
world. Others labored, discovered, ran dangerous risks, 
wasted their substance in doubtful experiments, and died 
poor 5 martyrs and heroes and patriots, a mighty proces- 
sion, gave their lives, that civilization might be estab- 
lished, that free men might safely build cities, that a vast 
framework of laws might bind states together, that the 
colossal modern system of credit might be erected on 
the foundations of trust and good faith. Thousands of 
faithful men — workmen, clerks, machinists, builders, 
customers — contributed to the rearing of the very for- 
tunes that individuals dare to call their own. Who that 
knows the rudiments of the history of civilization, who 
that traces effects to their causes, has the effrontry to 
look us in the face and say, " I earned my fortune alone" ? 
The very word " fortune " contradicts such an assertion. 
Fortune presupposes an element beyond any desert. 

It is possible, however, that a man's friends, if not 
the man himself, may claim that he deserves of society 
more than any amount of money or luxury can ever re- 
pay. Who can measure the value of the services of 
the gifted mind that invents a new industry to set ten 
thousand pairs of hands at work, or that adds a new or 
cheapened comfort to the lives of millions ? Who can 
pay Bessemer or Lord Kelvin too much for his rare in- 
telligence ? But how does this gifted mind itself arise ? 
Lord Kelvin is himself the fruit of the great tree of 
humanity. What can he give that he did not also re- 
ceive, from the labor, the thought, the experience, of 
centuries, from the stored-up learning of the world, from 



LUXURY AND SACRIFICE. 31 

the co-operation of an army of associates in his work, 
and, last and most of all, from the inspiration of the in- 
forming Mind of the universe, the eternal Wisdom. Let 
no genius proudly say, " I deserve to ride in my carriage 
and to lord it over my fellows." Let him modestly 
acknowledge the truth, " I give what I have received ; 
all I have is the gift of God. i From God for man.' " 

Grant, however, for a moment, all that the most arro- 
gant man might claim. Suppose a Vanderbilt to prove 
that by his individual contribution of organizing genius 
he had added a thousand million dollars, ten times his 
own fortune, to the farms of the United States. Let 
him prove that no one else would have done this work if 
he had not lived. Let us say that it is all his to do 
whatever he pleases with. It is private and personal. 
He shall write his own name as large as he likes on all 
his possessions. We will not, for the moment, interpose 
a query about his absolute legal right. What then ? 
Does the man thus forfeit his manhood ? Does he really 
wish to hold all for himself ? 

There is a man in a certain home by whose plate 
every morning is set a little pitcher of cream. He pays 
the bills of the house, and has a legal right to the 
cream. He accordingly pours it out for himself, while 
the others take the skimmed milk. What extremely 
short word have we to describe the kind of man who 
does this ? The same word characterizes every man 
whose wealth and legal rights are out of proportion to 
the size of his soul. It describes the thoughtless and 
greedy people who consume the cream of the products 
of the world, careless how their brothers live. It de- 
scribes those of the educated class who imagine that 
education is for private culture, and not to make men 



32 LUXURY AND SACRIFICE, 

and women wiser trustees, ministers and helpers for the 
enrichment and uplifting of their less fortunate brothers. 
No ! There is simply one thought that saves the use 
of luxuries from narrowing the natures and corrupting 
the lives of those who possess them. It is the recogni- 
tion of a sacred quality in every item of those extra en- 
joyments, of which there is not enough as yet for all 
equally to share. Nay, rather it is the recognition of a 
sacred element in all human life. We are not our own, 
to do as we please with our lives. We are not mere 
individuals, like forest trees, to grow as large as each one 
can, reckless of the fate of the rest. We belong in a 
social world; we are bound together for common weal 
or woe. We cannot prosper by ourselves, unless we 
help all to prosper. Indeed, we draw all our life from a 
common source; we belong to a divine universe. We 
are here to work out the purpose of that universe. The 
only conceivable purpose is Beneficence. All our wealth 
and luxury is for that purpose, or else it is vain. We 
cannot use our luxury, then, except in the spirit of benef- 
icence, without spoiling it. This is the inexorable law 
of life. The proclamation of it is the witness that we 
are the children of God. God lives in love. We can- 
not therefore live otherwise. 



VII. 

What all It may be that some one may already have 

TO^Joy NT P u ^ i n an i m P or tant interrogation mark. Is 
and De- not this teaching about luxury somewhat 
light. j^j.^ an( j utilitarian? Is it true that, be- 

sides all the tedious work of the world, our luxuries must 
also be translated into terms of efficiency, or even phi- 



LUXURY AND SACRIFICE. 33 

lanthropy ? Cannot we ever be let alone, without being 
reminded that we are here to do good ? In short, is 
there not a valid element of pure joy in life ? And are 
not luxuries really involved with this necessity in man's 
soul for free and pure joy and delight ? 

We have been coming all the way to this point. The 
great function of luxury doubtless is in the production 
of joy. It is not enough that the house merely gives 
shelter; it is well that its ample room adds a sense of 
freedom and gladness. It is not enough that the great 
public building stands like a huge box, full of offices 
or schoolrooms ; it is also well that the beauty of its 
proportions and its architectural adornments shall give 
delight to the eyes of men for generations. It is not 
enough that the table-fare shall provide a sufficient 
number of grains of protein and the other foods, as if 
for convicts in prison. Man craves the gladsome sense 
of variety and plenty ; he likes beautiful glass and china 
and silver; he craves pleasant companionship at his 
table ; his aesthetic nature wants the material for delight 
and development. Pictures and statues, the countless 
modes of decoration in furnishing and dress, are not for 
use, but for joy. Music, too, is largely for pure joy ; so 
is the drama. The same element is in literature. It is 
not enough to teach, to describe, to communicate facts ; 
form, style, order, unity, it may be also poetic fancy, 
rhythm, and rhyme, must contribute joy to the mind 
that reads the story or contemplates the facts. How 
large a part of all the labor of the world goes to make 
joy ! What unthanked months and years of toilsome 
practice go on, out of sight, in order to make the delight 
of a single entertainment, a grand concert, a Queen's 
Jubilee, a World's Fair ! 



34 LUXURY AND SACRIFICE. 

This is so true that we have a new test and critique 
by which to distinguish between legitimate luxury and 
the false, extravagant, and wasteful kinds. The whole- 
some luxury produces pure joy, like new life, not to be 
measured. Grant that the thing of beauty, the picture 
or statue, costs a lifetime of toil. It is well, if the sight 
of it gives men a thrill of infinite delight. Grant that 
the grand pageant — : the World's Exposition — demanded 
millions of money. But it is still a dream of gladness 
to thousands who made sacrifice to look on its white 
palaces. Grant that the alabaster box of ointment 
seemed too much for one woman to give. But no oint- 
ment ever distributed its perfume so far and so long. 

We know the vicious or useless luxury, on the other 
hand, by its failure to make joy. It even smothers joy. 
The pampered child, surfeited with sweets, surrounded 
with toys, tended by obsequious servants, does not get 
joy enough ; he is bored and wearied. The laborer's 
children in the cottage laugh more gayly. The rich lady, 
with her great expensive household, with her gowns and 
jewels, with books and art treasures, crowding upon her, 
with the continents and the seas open to her, misses 
true joy. Excessive or ill-used luxury breeds worri- 
ments. The luxurious class naturally furnishes the 
pessimists, restless, unhappy, foreboding trouble, con- 
templating suicide. No class of humble workers fur- 
nishes so many pessimists. 

There is a rigorous law of proportions about these 
things. Joy is an element of life, as much as nitrogen 
is an element in the body ; but you cannot force joy and 
build up life with the materials of joy alone, any better 
than you can build up the body with a single element. 
As Browning aptly says of the man who has got truth, 



LUXURY AND SACRIFICE. 35 

but no heart or will to balance his truth, so we may say 
of the man who has luxury without intelligence, sym- 
pathy, and good-will to correspond, — 

"The lamp o'erswims with oil, the stomach flags 
Loaded with nurture, aud that man's soul dies." 

All legitimate luxury, then, is for the sake of man's joy. 
It is in order to deepen the flow of the joy that we are 
bound to understand, use, and control our luxuries. 

The element of joy is not in man alone. It is every- 
where abroad in the world, it is in nature, it is in the 
life of God. The sparkle of the waves in the summer 
breeze, the multitudinous patterns of the frost-work, the 
songs of the birds, the gay colors of the wings of the 
butterflies, the play of the young lambs, the racing, 
gambolling porpoises, even the twinkling stars, bring to 
our minds, along with the undertone of mystery and 
majesty in the encompassing nature, the sense of pure joy 
and mirth, never far away from the heart of the great 
creative Power. We think of pain as bound up with 
some deep necessity ; it is the cost of life ; it is that 
which life is set to overcome. Life grows nobler in the 
task of overcoming it and changing it to good. But the 
joy of the world seems to be because God loves joy; 
it is the voice of the victorious Love, becoming sweeter 
and freer with each age of enlarging life. 



VIII. 

Joy and Did we agree that pure joy is an end in 

Human itself? Did we deny the bare utilitarian 

doctrine that everything must be viewed 
with reference to economy and efficiency ? The truth 
is, that the test of a man's success is not merely in what 



36 LUXURY AND SACRIFICE. 

lie can do, not even in the sum of social good that he 
can accomplish. The supreme test of the man is in the 
amount and fulness of his manhood. You can never 
separate the things that" "God hath joined together." 
Utility, beauty, goodness, manhood, all are one. Utility 
and duty are only different aspects of the underlying 
unity. In a high and true sense, therefore, joy always 
marches with efficiency. Make a man happy, and, other 
things being equal, he will do more work in a day. Make 
the child glad in his school, and he gets his lessons 
quicker. Surely there is no waste in the energy that 
sings at its work. 

It is strange that every intelligent employer does not 
see this wonderful relation between happiness and effi- 
ciency. Does any one dream that a force of discontented 
men will ever be profitable by the side of joyous work- 
men ? Joyless wage-labor is wasteful precisely as slave- 
labor was wasteful. You must make even your cattle 
comfortable in order to get the most out of them ; you 
must make men more than comfortable, — you must make 
them happy. But see here the subtle law. You can 
succeed in making cattle comfortable, for the sake of 
your selfishness, to get the most profit out of them ; you 
never can make men happy so. The one thing that will 
make the man happy is to respect his manhood, to treat 
him with frankness, complete justice, and sympathy, to 
give him your heart ; in short, to keep the Golden Rule 
toward him. The business world, always pressing toward 
higher modes of efficiency, is already beginning to catch 
the secret of this divine unity of plan. Only civilized 
men, that is, complete men, with all the elements of 
their manhood nourished and satisfied, can do the work 
of a civilized world. 



LUXURY AXD SACRIFICE, 37 

Utility or efficiency is thus everywhere one with joy. 
But joy is the higher aspect ; it represents that out of 
which energy itself proceeds. In other words, it is ful- 
ness of life. For who is our model and perfect athlete ? 
He is not surely the man with narrow margin of strength, 
nervous and anxious, who faints away as he touches the 
prize ; but he is the man who, running with all his might, 
seems to draw on an inexhaustible reserve, and wears on 
his face the confidence and hope of a victor. So the true 
master of the secret of life is not only faithful unto death, 
but also bears in his heart the freedom, the joy, and the 
hope befitting God's sons. Is there anything in which 
God can more truly be conceived to rejoice than in this 
super bundance of life ? 

IX. 

The Ques- The fact faces us still that we are in a 

tion of world where sorrow, disappointment, and 

Sorrow 

and Pain death are. The poor are always with us ; 

the mourners go about the street ; tragedies 
of injustice are enacted. War still desolates the fair 
earth. The ascetic and Puritan impulse is in us to re- 
pudiate joy in such a world. How can we have human 
sympathies, and be glad, while multitudes suffer ? What 
right have we to lift up joyous faces and sing in the 
very presence of those who weep ? There are moods in 
which these questions seem unanswerable. In other 
words, there are times in which we must simply yield 
to our sympathies, and "weep with those who weep." 
Alas for any soul that never is touched by the cry of 
a human toil and crime." 

Grant now, what we have already suggested, that we 
have a use for every note, up and down the scale, whereby 



38 LUXURY AND SACRIFICE. 

the mystery of man's life is interpreted. There are 
three tremendous considerations that forbid us from al- 
lowing the music of the world to be prevailingly written 
in the minor key. In the first place, there is the central 
thought of God. Let a man be an utter agnostic, and 
y<et, if he is intelligent, the mighty " Perhaps/' the sub- 
lime possibility that the long procession of the prophets 
and saints have been right, at least in the direction of 
their march, must sometimes thrill the human mind with 
joyous wonder. Let a man believe ever so faintly in 
truth, in beauty, in order, in unity, in the ideal things ; 
let him merely purpose to conduct his life on that side 
as against chaos, untruth, unfaithfulness ; let him only 
once in a while catch the light of the stars, — and he can 
not help being glad, as when the summer sun shines be- 
fore his face. In short, as Paul says, " if God be for 
us," in any real sense of the word, " who can be against 
us ? " Or, what can " separate us from the love of 
God " ? Why, then, we ask, should " children of the 
King go mourning all their days " ? 

Again, we rightly grieve over the sorrows of the poor. 
Pray God we may never forget the oppressed races. Let 
us not be so dull, however, as to suppose that the poor 
do nothing but starve, or that the oppressed nations suf- 
fer a monotone of despair. The sunlight and the star- 
light, nameless human kindnesses and heroisms, and the 
presence of God, are with the poor and oppressed, as 
truly as with the rich and the powerful. The children 
of the poor are as near to God's heart in their simple 
mirth as other children are. When was it ever discov- 
ered that joy depended on many possessions ? Every- 
where, even in the very teeth of armed violence, love 
stories are enacted; in war as in peace young men and 



LUXURY AND SACRIFICE. 39 

maidens are mairied and given in marriage. Every- 
where in the cabins of peasants and serfs, babies' laces 
carry the pure joy of God to mothers' hearts. The sick 
have their hours of refreshment. The standing wonder 
of the world is that human nature, like some divine 
thing, turns tears and blood and pain into new forms of 
life. The wonder is, in reading the story of the oppressed 
nations, that oppression has never permanently quelled 
the invincible spirit of liberty and manhood. In the 
long struggle upward from barbarism and in the darkest 
ages, hope that somewhere all would yet be well has 
animated the hearts of myriads of brave sufferers. We 
pitied the blacks in their bondage, but the blacks did 
not despair. On every plantation in the Christmas-time 
men saw the joyous merry-makings of the slaves. If the 
slave and the poor and the sick can rejoice, shall we not 
all rejoice too ? It is the common human nature that 
draws us closer together. We will not relax one effort 
for relief, because our hearts have throbbed together in 
joy, as well as in sorrow. 

Moreover, we wish to know how best to help our suffer- 
ing brethren. Shall we do them any good by trying to 
carry the woe of the world on our shoulders ? Will it 
help any one to be freer of poverty or sorrow or oppres- 
sion, if we act as if there were no good God in the uni- 
verse ? Let us go to the very poor, and ask them what 
they want of those who chance to be better off than they 
are. We have already seen that the poor are probably 
only too fond of the splendor and pomp of the luxu- 
rious class. The poor tend to encourage lavish display. 
They desire to see more, not less, of the joy and glory of 
life. Men are like children in this respect. Even in the 
eyes of the jaded and forlorn, the joy of the thoughtless 



40 LUXURY AND SACRIFICE. 

and selfish is better than sadness and monotony. The 
great, gay, splendid city, with its two terrible extremes, 
is nevertheless richer in the resources that constitute 
life than a barren level of communal uniformity. The 
poor would not thank the rich to strip away their bright 
plumage, and to shut up the doors at Delmonico's and Tif- 
fany's. They demand rather that the rich shall behave 
worthily of their grand responsibilities ; they ask the rich 
not to destroy the precious material for making joy, but to 
show how more chances may be open to themselves and 
their children to win the same. Everywhere the voice 
of the poor to the more prosperous is not to forbid joy, 
but to do justice, to " lend a hand," to help all to share 
the common heritage of joy, in which all men surely 
ought to have a part. 

Let us go to the hospitals, where pain and suffering 
are massed together, and let us make the patients tell us 
whom they wish to see in their wards. Do they wish to 
see sorrowful faces and tears ? The very reverse. They 
want joy and hope quite as much as sympathy. They 
want nurses and visitors who bring smiles and cheerful 
words ; they like to hear the voices of happy children. 
Come and sing beautiful songs to them. Tell them of 
the good things that you know, of other sick ones who 
are recovering ; tell them about the gayety and the flow- 
ers at the last wedding or party. They will not thank 
you for dwelling on their sufferings. Yes, when they 
may be feeling the worst, show them the faces of men 
and women shining with the light of their faith in God. 

We will put the same kind of question to those who 
sorrow for the death of their friends. Shall we dress in 
crape ? Shall we shut out the sunshine from our houses ? 
Shall the marriage-bells be stopped ? Shall the chil- 



LUXURY AND SACRIFICE. 41 

dren's play be hushed ? No. There is no sad heart 
that does not crave light and joy. The cure of melan- 
choly is in the children's gladness. The weeds of 
mourning are the survival of bygone superstitions ; the 
darkened windows are a barrier to the influx of the life 
of God. Face about toward the light ; let no sorrow 
of yours needlessly weight down the shoulders of toil- 
ing men ; work on, hope on. Here is the gospel that for- 
ever turns sorrow into ampler and deeper life. You will 
help sorrowing friends by such sympathy alone as carries 
love, hope, and gladness. 

We have here a word to all sad-eyed reformers. What 
sort of men does the world demand to do its costly work 
of regeneration ? It wants the same kind of men that 
it asks for its physicians and surgeons. However much 
you respect frank truthfulness, you want no pessimist 
for your physician ; neither do you want any one to cry 
over your suffering. You summon to your need the kind 
of physician who is always hoping for the best. The 
true physician should be a whole man ; he should pos- 
sess faith as well as charity. In some simple form he 
should be a believer in God. Such a man carries an 
atmosphere of health, gladness, and life. The world 
wants the same sort of large-natured men for its moral, 
social, and political reformers. Why is it, when the 
teacher has long since given up the rod, that the re- 
former should still hold it over the back of the world, 
and think to drive and frighten men into the way of 
goodness ? The jeremiads, the maledictory psalms, the 
old-time denunciations of the wicked, should be stored 
in the museums with the bows and arrows of the pri- 
meval men. Even the capitalists and the politicians are 
men like ourselves, to be approached, therefore, with the 



42 LUXURY AND SACRIFICE. 

tone of those who speak a gospel. Why should reform 
be made to appear a bitter pill to be forced down men's 
throats ? Why should not the most chronic and refrac- 
tory patient be made glad that there is a way of rescue 
Y and new life ? 



Sacrifice in We have agreed that there is a sacred 

That CfflL- E ( l ualit y in a11 luxury. We have seen that 

dren Would in this thought is the clew to the wise, 

Desire IT. gafe ^ and h umarie treatment of all the 

means, resources, and appurtenances of joyous life. We 
are ready to carry this thought now to its logical conclu- 
sion, and to annex the whole golden region of joy and 
pleasure to the republic of our common humanity. We 
will set pure joy where it belongs, — under the unity of 
religion. 

We may draw a profound lesson here, by way of illus- 
tration, from the ancient superstitions. The primitive 
man looked upon all exceptional good fortune — success in 
the chase, the discovery of water in the desert, the birth 
of a son and heir, the finding of treasure, a bounteous 
harvest — as a gift of the gods. Woe unto the man who 
in his pride ventured to take his good luck as his own, and 
without thought of the invisible powers that surrounded 
him ! The great feast must be made sacred by prayers, 
libations, and offerings. The treasure must be made to 
pay tribute to the temples. Victory was celebrated with 
the payment of vows. The custom of " saying grace " 
at table is the survival of this ancient sentiment; it 
comes down from the hungry times, when the gift of 
plenty seemed an almost miraculous boon. The idea 
was that men ate in the presence of their god ; they took 



LUXURY AXD SACRIFICE. 43 

his gifts in reverence. It was as if he bade them eat 
and drink in his name. His worshippers were not their 
own masters, eager to eat, like wild beasts, before the 
mighty unseen Host gave the word. 

The solemn marriage rites of all nations convey the 
same idea. Beauty, joy, and love were the gifts of the 
gods. Man might not touch them unbidden. It was 
for him to wait reverently, in due regard for their sacred 
character, till the word of permission came from above. 
Then the sanction of the invisible world was added 
to love, and made a perpetual defence about the new 
home. The voice of the god, above the voices of all 
the guests, bade the husband and wife to love and 
be thankful, to be reverent evermore, and the more to 
rejoice. 

Under ceremonial, superstition, and priestcraft a great 
and universal idea was working to consciousness. We are 
able now to translate it into the simplest and most ra- 
tional terms. There is not only force at the secret heart 
of things, and force dominant in nature swinging the 
planets ; there is not only law and order compelling all 
changing phenomena to take on form, pattern, and 
beauty ; there is not only thought or mind shining every- 
where ; there is not only an irresistible spirit of the uni- 
verse swaying man's soul ; as if by an inward voice urging 
him to follow right " in the scorn of consequence/' stir- 
ring him by splendid visions and ideals to take the 
hitherto untrodden way of truth — there is also in the 
central and encompassing life what we men call love ; it 
seeks not obedience merely, but welfare, not only effi- 
ciency of accomplishment, as of ingenious machines, but 
divine delight and satisfaction. The idea of the old- 
time blessing at the daily meal is forever true. The 



44 LUXURY AND SACRIFICE. 

Eternal bids his children eat and drink and be merry. 
Let them be reverent, obedient, humble, gentle, benefi- 
cent, and so much the fuller will be their pure joy. The 
old-time puritan custom of family prayers, rightly under- 
stood, carried a deep and rational significance. Each day 
belonged to God ; each life went forth on a divine mis- 
sion. The cares of the day and its joys alike belonged 
to the eternal and universal order ; nothing human was 
outside this order. The wedding ceremony still tells us 
modern men the same story. It lifts wedded love into 
an eternal relationship. It is not a private and personal 
love ; it is a revelation of the love of God. 

We have come now to a definite understanding of 
that much abused and misunderstood word sacrifice. It 
has been often supposed that to sacrifice anything was 
to give it away, forswear or renounce it. The real, as 
well as the literal, meaning is to make a thing sacred. 
You lift it out of the narrow, animal, material, or selfish 
level into the higher, divine, and universal order. You 
lift the single stone, worthless and insignificant by 
itself, into the wall of the temple of humanity. To 
make the thing sacred is to make it, like all God's work, 
beneficent. To consecrate a thing, to make it "holy," 
is thus to constitute it a part of the unity of God's 
world. This is creative work. Man is herein taken 
into God's confidence, as it were, and allowed to co-ope- 
rate in his thought. 

Apply this idea of sacrifice now to man's joy and lux- 
ury. Joy and sacrifice have been thought incompatible. 
To make a sacrifice was to forswear joy. To be religious 
was to narrow life, and to cut off a part of its income. 
The true thought is the very reverse. It is to conceive 
of the joy as from God ; it is to enter into a higher and 



LUXURY AND SACRIFICE. 45 

larger meaning of joy ; it is to hold the joy as one holds 
any sacred trust. So far from hindering the flow of 
joyous feeling, we have all obstruction of fear and doubt 
taken away when, as Tennyson says, the sweeter inward 
voice cries, " Rejoice, rejoice!" Alas for a man when 
the joy is of such a kind that it cannot be made sacred. 
For then the sense of unrest and restraint either stifles 
the soul, or turns the abandon of pleasure into a con- 
suming madness. 

As with joy, so with sorrow, the new or higher 
thought of sacrifice takes the soul out of its isolation, 
loneliness, and egotism. To make a thing sacred is to 
say of it that God is with us in it. He is with us in our 
joy ; he is also our companion in loss or grief. We are 
not alone ; we are citizens of the universe ; " our times 
are in his hands ; " if he is in our joy, we may rever- 
ently say that our sorrow enters also into his life. And 
this is the source of a deeper joy. 

Does any one object that this is too wonderful and 
good to believe ? But this would be practically to say 
that it is too wonderful for us to believe in God ! The 
truth is, that we are as yet only on the verge of under- 
standing what it means, when we call ourselves, after 
Jesus' fashion, "the children of God." Does any one 
still draw back from so tremendous and logical a faith 
as this ? But curiously enough, the conception of a uni- 
verse without God is even more wonderful and incredi- 
ble. It is a conception that translates the whole stately 
frame of the universe into insignificance, impotence, and 
death. Whereas, the religious conception that frankly 
places all souls in the presence of victorious Beneficence, 
translates everything, both in theory and practice, up- 
wards into power, peace, gladness, and life, — the very 



46 LUXURY AND SACRIFICE. 

things that all men are made by nature to seek. Let us 
make this perfectly plain. 

XI. 

The Good The old, base, and animal tendency is to 

SACRAMENT. take and USe ^° J aS lf man had ^^ llim " 

self to think of. It is unconscious athe- 
ism. The story of King Nebuchadnezzar's boast, "Is 
not this great Babylon which I have built ? " is the clas- 
sic object-lesson of egotistic pride in one's own posses- 
sions. The favorite words of this kind of pride are " I " 
and " mine." The animal propensity is to hoard up for 
one's self the resources of life. The vain and small soul 
looks back and dwells on its own winnings as it broods 
over its petty losses. The story of the manna in the 
wilderness is a parable to illustrate this way of regard- 
ing life. The manna was good while it was fresh ; but 
the story was, it turned to corruption as soon as one tried 
to keep it over night. So with joy ; so with life. It is 
good day by day, fresh as it comes. But no man can 
store it away for himself. Hoard it up, try to put 
your private mark upon it, and it always eludes you ; 
it turns into anxieties, apprehensions, vanity, stinginess, 
disappointment. Like Nebuchadnezzar, the self-centred 
and irresponsible despots go crazy ; the selfish lovers 
lose the prize of love ; the luxurious grow obese and die. 
The little child, like the birds, may take his life fresh 
from the hand of God every morning without asking 
what it is for ; but when man has once asked the man's 
question what life means, he must henceforth lay joy 
altogether on the altar of sacrifice. An inexorable but 
beneficent law drives him on the venturesome way of 
his growth as a son of God. 



LUXURY AND SACRIFICE. 47 

The sacrifice of life, as we have seen, is the making 
of life sacred or holy. The new or Christian conception 
of life is that it belongs unreservedly to God, that is, to 
Beneficence. Life is a trust for love's sake. To make 
life sacred means to turn it to the highest ends, to ad- 
mit no element into it that is not beneficent. In other 
words, we devote life in all its motions to the social 
good. This is to make life sacred. 

High up among the hills flows the great glacial stream 
from the melting snows, the inexhaustible resources of 
heaven. Down below on the arid plain the stream comes 
to us. Through each man's little farm runs the channel 
of the blessed invigorating waters. Every drop of the 
water is sacred to Beauty and Use, to make flowers grow, 
to raise good crops of corn and fruit, to leap from foun- 
tains and dance in the sunshine, to cool the lips of cattle 
and men. Use it, enjoy it, let each make his little 
farm green with its pure flow ; let no one obstruct or 
waste it as it runs on to other farms down the valley. 
So life flows to every soul of us from the fountains of 
God. Every moment of it likewise is sacred to Beauty, 
to Truth, to Duty, to Love. 

We may illustrate and apply our thought in certain 
familiar instances. Take, for example, the Thanksgiv- 
ing feast or the birthday celebration. We may say in all 
reverence that the Almighty bids us take the festivity, 
the music, the flowers, the congratulations of friends, as 
so many signs of the Eternal Goodness. But all this 
high j°y is ours as a trust. "We cannot narrowly say 
" I " and " mine " about it. We have no right to keep 
it to ourselves. What splendid word comes after the 
music has come and the friends have departed ? It is 
somewhat like this : God make me more generous all 



48 LUXURY AND SACRIFICE. 

the days of my life for the sake of this rich joy. God 
keep Hie humble, gentle, helpful, and turn this joy of 
mine into the stream of the world's joy, so as to deepen 
its flow. Such is the grand religious spirit of sacrifice, 
that lets no life be lived for itself. 

We will suppose that some young girl has the charm 
of grace and beauty. What shall she do ? Shall she 
hide her beauty behind a veil, or go into a convent? 
Shall she mortify her bright young spirit with coarse 
and unbeautiful dress ? Shall she try to deny the fact 
of her beauty ? No ! Let her be very glad and thank- 
ful for her joy-compelling gifts. The world needs grace 
and beauty. Let her therefore hold these gifts sacred. 
This does not mean to spoil and ignore them. It means 
to recognize the truth that they came from God; it 
means that she will never turn them over to the uses of 
vanity, pride, and selfishness ; it means that she will be 
glad in them for love's sake, as one would be glad to 
give a drink of cold water to the thirsty. The girl's 
beauty is not her own to please herself with; it is a 
trust wherewith she shall add the charm of her life to 
the beneficent purpose of God. Can any one doubt for 
a moment that beauty, thus turned over into the terms 
of noble sacrifice, becomes richer and sweeter for all 
souls that look upon it ? Can any one doubt that, thus 
lifted up into the plane of our common humanity and 
held sacred there, beauty passes into the spiritual realm 
and becomes eternal ? The very secret of beauty, in 
fact, is that it is the visible emblem of love. 

We will suppose, again, some young man of large and 
exceptional endowments. He has health, energy, manly 
virtue, good sense and good temper, intellect and wit, 
all crowned with a truly liberal education. Shall we 



LUXURY AND SACRIFICE. 49 

ask him to make a sacrifice of all that he has ? Yes, 
we can ask nothing less than the nation asked of Lin- 
coln, or than the world asked of Jesus. We bid him 
put his splendid endowments to the highest and most 
effective use for the service of man. We beg him never 
to imagine that he created this fine equipment, or that 
he holds it for himself. It is the most sacred of trusts. 
It is for this splendid reason that we bid him also be 
heartily and reverently glad of his gifts. It is as if the 
Almighty had made over to him a rare and wonderful 
instrument, or some new force, and had charged him to 
put this instrument or this new force to the utmost use 
for the benefit of humanity. What should we think, 
if, charged with such a purpose, he turned his power to 
the growth of his own conceit, selfishness, and egotism, 
or even to the oppression of the very men whom he was 
set to minister unto ? Must we not say that to hold any 
power sacred is the most reasonable use of that power ? 
Does any one begin to understand what power is, or 
what it is for, until he looks upon it as a social trust ? 
Is a man, indeed, fully a man, till he conceives of him- 
self as simply a son of God, the citizen of a universe, 
not therefore his own master, but the minister of the 
forces of God ? 

Take another instance. Let us suppose that a man 
has achieved some great success. He has organized a 
new industry ; he has discovered a new element ; he has 
established a principle ; he has painted a picture ; or he 
has made a poem that the world will read for ages after 
he is gone. What shall we say about his success ? We 
say, let him be both utterly humble and unreservedly 
happy in his success. If he has been the voice through 
which the message of God has come into the world, if 



50 LUXURY AND SACRIFICE. 

he has adjusted the wires over which fresh access of 
power and life has come, why should he not be glad ? 
Let him see to it now that his success be turned into 
fresh power and service. What else was his success but 
the life of the universe, surging up in the fortunate mo- 
ment into victory ? Others before him had labored, and 
he had harvested the fruits of their labor. His success 
is not his own ; it is sacred. It shall forbid him to be 
arrogant ; it shall bind him over to be forever generous, 
gentle, affectionate, simple-hearted. God forbid that the 
man ever should go about the street sad and forlorn, 
who has been permitted to do a good and helpful thing 
for humanity ! Shall he demand reward or payment ? 
Was it not joy enough to do the deed ? 

We cannot make the true and higher meaning of sac- 
rifice too clear. Let us take another instance. We 
will suppose that some one has won the great prize of 
love ; the eyes of a true and generous wife have watched 
over his welfare ; he has tasted the sweetness of a happy 
home; children have come to brighten his life; the 
friendship of good men and gracious women has blessed 
and enriched him. All these munificent gifts are sacred ; 
they are not merely private and personal, but they spring 
out of the life of the universe. The soul that has known 
pure love has been made a divine trustee for love's sake. 
He cannot henceforth say " I " and " mine " about love. 
He cannot hoard his treasure ; even if death comes to 
his loved ones, he cannot brood over his loss. God forbid 
that any man upon whose face the eternal light has 
shone, into whose heart the priceless and infinite gift 
of love has descended, should ever be heartbroken ! God 
forbid that he should forget what he has had, or lose his 
splendid memories, or, having known love, that he should 



LUXURY AND SACRIFICE. 51 

not henceforth know both faith and hope. For all love 
is sacred ; whoever has known love has come under a 
bond to show forth love forever. 



XII. 

The Law We now read out from all our experiences 
of Joy. a p ro f oun( i i aw f iif e . The law of man's life 
is to march erect, with his face to the front. To look 
backward, to live regretful over the past, to contemplate 
its disappointments and reverses, and to stay in the evil 
company of one's mistakes and sins, is to thwart and 
spoil life. If a man were his own master, he might 
have a right thus to live in the past, to beat his breast 
as much as he pleased, to shut himself up in the grim 
castle of his egotism. The truth is, he is not his own 
master. He is like a soldier under orders to hasten for- 
ward. Lame, wounded, beaten, blinded, he is still in the 
service; he must add his little to the help of the rest. 
While life lasts, it is all for the sake of the great cause. 
Pleasure and personal success become therefore inci- 
dental. The man's work is larger than to get pleasure 
or success for himself. His work is to put his whole 
life out in the service of the Beneficent Powers. He 
may seem, like William the Silent, never to win success 
in his immediate undertakings. It is enough that God's 
life flows in him. If God's life is his, joy is his too. 
He takes it as the soldier takes his rations, his rest, or 
his furlough, or, on occasion, the tremendous ventures 
of battle. " March on," is the voice of the Master. 
Trust him for more joy and new life as you go. Eeal 
life is here and now ; it meets you as you move on. As 
Browning says, — 



52 LUXURY AND SACRIFICE. 

" Was it for mere fool's play, make-believe and mumming, 
So we battled it like men, not boylike, sulked or whined ? 
Each of us heard clang God's ' Come ! ' and each was coming: 
Soldiers all, to forward-face, not sneaks to lag behind ! 

How of the field's fortune? That concerned our Leader! 
Led, we struck our stroke nor cared for doings left and right: 
. Each as on his sole head, failer or succeeder, 

Lay the blame or lit the praise: no care for cowards: fight! " 

We may express the same idea in another form. 
What is the law of every little artery and vein in the 
body ? It is to pass on the flow of the blood. Woe to 
the vein that thinks to stop the life, and take it all for 
itself. But as the veins each give full and free flow 
through themselves, lo ! thus they have perfect nourish- 
ment. So with the life of man. Let him keep to him- 
self, if he can, the good that comes to him, let him be 
selfish with it, and presently what seemed good turns to 
mischief. Let him now open wide all the valves of his 
life ; let him take and give all that he gets ; let him 
pour out the full stream of life, as if all that he had to 
do was to enrich others beyond him. His own life, in 
this constant and unremitting circulation, thus gets for 
itself all that it needs. Stop the circulation for a mo- 
ment, and disease begins to set in. Clear away obstruc- 
tion, remove friction, increase the flow of the life, and 
disease disappears as if by magic. Every form of life 
is thus seen to be a kind of trust. It is not our own, 
it is universal ; it is sacred, as from God. To sacrifice 
life, as Jesus taught, is not to lose, but to understand 
and gain life eternal. 



LUXURY AND SACRIFICE. 53 



XIII. 

Mans Most We ought by this time to have taken 
Permanent the word "sacrifice" entirely out of the 

INVEST- 

>/mATmo class of dreadful and negative things, and 

MENTS. • . ° ° ' 

to have placed it forever, where it belongs, 
among the great positive and inspiring watchwords. 
What every chivalrous soul really wants is the oppor- 
tunity of sacrifice, in other words, the opportunity of 
growth and life. Jesus expressed this fact when he 
said that the kingdom of God was "like unto a mer- 
chantman seeking goodly pearls, who, when he had 
found the pearl of great price, went and sold all that 
he had, and bought it." What should we say if this 
man began to tell us of the terrible loss that he had 
undergone ! The fact is, the man was never so rich 
before. His sacrifice was simply the process of trans- 
lation from lower values into higher and more precious 
terms. 

The child gives up his own way to obey his mother ; 
in that act he grows toward manhood. The youth gives 
up time and money to secure an education. It is not 
loss, but wise investment. The bridegroom says, " With 
all my worldly goods I thee endow ; " the words of 
seeming renunciation are the fulfilment of all the 
lover's hopes. The mother forgets herself in her chil- 
dren ; Nathan Hale, the patriot boy, gives his life. 
John Bright, the stalwart English reformer, with his 
young wife lying dead in his house, puts away his own 
personal sorrow at the thought of the needs of the poor, 
to do immediate public service for his country. You 
do not altogether pity the suffering mother, the mar- 
tyred patriot, the burdened statesman and reformer. 



54 LUXURY AND SACRIFICE. 

You glory in them ; all men are richer for them ; they 
opened the way for more life to come into the world. 
The hope of immortality itself stands in such lives. 

There is no difficulty now in understanding what has 
seemed to many one of the most difficult of the stories 
in the New Testament. It is the story of Jesus' treat- 
ment of the rich young man, earnest and lovable, who 
came asking what he must do to possess eternal life. 
Jesus' treatment of him seems almost harsh. Why 
should a man who had kept all the laws fail of winning 
eternal life ? The fact is, the young man had not yet 
caught the idea of what quality " eternal life " is. He 
knew what a respectable personal life was, but he did 
not yet see that larger and higher thing, the social and 
universal life, — the life of God's sons. Eternal life is 
the life of sacrifice. 

We can imagine that some fine young man had come 
to Washington at Valley Forge with the question, what 
he needed to do to enter into the life of a patriot. 
Would Washington have simply told him that he should 
go on keeping the laws of his country ? But the times 
demanded, as they always demand, something more 
vital than to keep the laws of decent society. " If you 
want to be a patriot," we can hear Washington say, " if 
you wish to be one of my men, do what I am doing ; 
put your fortune and life at risk, come with us, and 
serve the utmost needs of the people." As a matter of 
fact, Washington lost neither his life nor his fortune, 
but he sacrificed them, that is, he held them utterly at 
the disposal of his country. And we all truly see the 
gulf of difference between such patriots as Washington 
and the men at Valley Forge, and men who merely kept 
the laws, and looked after their property in New York 



LUXURY AND SACRIFICE. 55 

and Philadelphia. So we all see the difference between 
the rich young ruler and Jesus. It is the world-wide 
difference between the narrow or selfish life and the 
social, the universal, the " eternal w life, which holds all 
things as from God and for man. 



XIV. 

What We rise now to the highest possible doc- 

Every One trine of human efficiency. General Arm- 

Ought to 

Expect strong at Hampton had caught it exactly 

when he wrote among the noble memoranda 
that he left after his death, " What is commonly called 
sacrifice is the best possible use of one's self and one's 
resources." Is there anything that an intelligent man 
could more greatly desire than to put his life to its 
highest possible use ? Is any purer joy possible than to 
know that one's life goes to make good abound, to make 
light shine, to add to the sum of human welfare ? If a 
man could know at every moment that he was where 
God wanted him, that he was doing at that moment, 
whether in toil or sorrow, in rest or in friendly inter- 
course, at the level of his daily tasks or in the height 
of inspiration, precisely what Beneficence commanded, 
would not this be the fulness of effective, gladsome 
living ? 

Christianity has hitherto only partially, feebly, and 
waveringly taught its great doctrine. Christendom has 
not believed its own gospel. Forsaking the vital religion 
of Jesus and of all the heroes and saints as impractica- 
ble, men have put up with a sort of conventional Chris- 
tianity, from which the great essential ideas of the 
Golden Eule and the real presence of God were dropped 



56 LUXURY AND SACRIFICE. 

out. We are only beginning to find that these majestic 
ideas may be trusted and followed to their splendid con- 
clusions, as surely as the law of gravitation or the fact 
of the sunshine. The fundamental duty of sacrifice is 
not a sad, repellent, negative rule, to scare the hearts of 
youth, to minimize life, to check man's eager desire for 
joy. It is a grand highway, where life may run to its 
fullest accomplishment and realization. It is a word to 
stir the chivalry of ardent and noble souls. We cannot 
repeat to this generation too clearly its stirring gospel — 
as sure as the universe — that it is safe and beautiful to 
live as if in the presence of God; that it is safe and 
beautiful to trust the voices of conscience and love — 
God's testimony within us ; that this is to make all life 
sacred, to bring life to its highest efficiency. 

All details and conditions fall under the one compre- 
hensive law. To sacrifice luxuries is to handle them 
efficiently for love's sake. How shall they do the most 
human service ? To sacrifice money is to consecrate it 
to its largest opportunities in making men wise, free, 
virtuous, happy. To sacrifice time, so far from wasting 
it, is to spend it in the noblest way. Agassiz and Dar- 
win sacrificed their lives to the discovery of truth. They 
could not have disposed of their lives in any way so suc- 
cessful or satisfactory. Livingstone and Armstrong, 
men say, sacrificed their chances for making a fortune. 
In other words, they gave up a lower and smaller kind 
of life to take a higher and richer career. Shaw and 
Winthrop and many another young man in the time of 
the Civil War died at the outset of their career. Jesus 
died a young man. Was this loss of life ? Did Herod 
or Caiaphas or Caesar begin to have life as Jesus enjoyed 
it ? In the eyes of clear intelligence, then, to make a 



LUXURY AND SACRIFICE. 57 

sacrifice is to be doing precisely the thing which is best 
and most fruitful. To live a life of sacrifice is to be 
doing at every moment the most useful thing possible ; 
it is to be constantly using the whole of one's power ; it 
is, therefore, to be most alive. What can any man want 
more and better than this ? Is not this the religion for 
the twentieth century ? 

xv. 

The Doc- Is there no evil, then, some one may ask ? 

trine that Are there not human experiences of which 

no*Fvtt- IS a man ma y we ^ s ^ an( l ^ n dread, and cry, 
" Deliver us from evil"? Are there not 
crises when the word " sacrifice " seems still to bear ex- 
actly the sense of a loss ? To these profound questions 
we must answer both Yes and No. We do not wish for 
a moment to blind our eyes to the fact of the tremendous 
contrasts in the midst of which the life of man goes on 
as if by rhythmic motion. The law is of alternating 
darkness and light, summer and winter. It is a cheap 
philosophy that denies the existence of pain, denies that 
it has its solemn uses. It is a weak love that would not 
choose to suffer in the sorrow or the loss of a friend. 
It is a sentimental and materialistic optimism that 
cherishes the expectation that we shall banish physical 
death from the earth. It is a miserable travesty on the 
old story of the cross that pretends that Jesus ought 
not really to have felt the touch of the Eoman nails in 
his hands and feet. To the finite sight, looking at things 
from below, as we make our way upward, there certainly 
appear narrow and difficult places, the passage through 
which evermore demands courage, patience, and chivalry. 
Life at its highest and grandest moments is often an act, 



58 LUXURY AND SACRIFICE. 

not altogether of sight, but of faith. When General 
Armstrong, looking back over the whole of his life, said 
that " he never had sacrificed anything/' he did not mean 
that he never had taken any brave ventures ; he did not 
mean that he had never been called to acts that looked 
at the time to him and to others like sheer waste and 
loss. 

We teach a higher, saner, and sounder philosophy than 
that pain does not exist, or that the efforts of the heroes 
cost nothing in overcoming resistance within and with- 
out. The majestic teachings of the richest human ex- 
perience show that all such effort, pain, seeming evil, 
sacrifice of life, go to the making of manhood, — to " the 
manifestation of the sons of God." Man must endure the 
darkness of the night ; but around his little earth, while 
he watches or sleeps, the light plays without ceasing. 
Let him be glad that it will presently shine again in his 
face ! Man must bear the stress of the storm and the 
rigor of winter ; but God's laws, — let him never forget 
it, — like the everlasting arms, are underneath him still. 
The body must waste and die, since every pound of it 
belongs to the elements of the earth; but its death does 
not touch the deeper fact of an immortal life, into which, 
in every moment of real sacrifice, the thinking, loving, 
willing son of God has entered. Heard from below, the 
old chivalric call often seems to be to give life away. 
Looked at from above, even as God sees, as we too see 
at our best, every sacrifice for Duty, for Truth, or for 
Love, proves to be gain. To believe this is faith, or 
religion. 



LUXURY AXD SACRIFICE. 59 



XVI. 

The Para- The world is working out a wonderful 
ble of parable of the higher religion in the indus- 

industry. trial order of societ y- In the old da y s > t0 

a very large extent, man toiled and hunted 
and travelled alone. In the Appalachian region of 
America men still live an extremely isolated life. You 
will see the solitary traveller pursuing his way over a 
rough trail on horseback. You will find the little farms 
where the rude processes of agriculture go on as help- 
lessly as if the whole world were still barbarous. And 
yet through the midst of men who live in this primitive 
isolation run the lines of the vast railway system, be- 
speaking the march of a new order of life. The motto 
of this new order is co-operation. There is in it the 
beginning and the prophecy of sacrifice. In combining 
to build the continental railroads, thousands of scat- 
tered men and women have come out of their isolation 
and narrowness, have parted with their hoarded sav- 
ings, and have devoted them to a great common and 
civilizing end. What if they have not altogether seen 
the true significance of their act ? What if they have 
expected their own gain rather than the gain of a dis- 
tant community ? What if they have been used by the 
Divine Will for the consummation of his far-reaching 
purpose ? The fact remains that they have been made 
to join hands, and to contribute for the welfare of man- 
kind. Skilful engineers have drawn on the accumulated 
knowledge and experience of the centuries ; unseen 
forces have been unlocked from the depths of the earth ; 
in an almost literal sense, the human wagons have been 
" hitched to a star;" thousands of men may now ride 



60 LUXURY AND SACRIFICE. 

together and visit one another, where the few once 
slowly climbed over the hills ; the riches of the nation 
are distributed to meet the needs of each part ; new 
standards of civilized life, new and higher ethics, a more 
thorough and helpful religion, begin to penetrate into 
every little hamlet. 



XVII. 

A Ohal- We have called this co-operative indus- 

lengb to trial system which we are building up in 

the modern world a parable. We are learn- 
ing in all kinds of outward form to socialize thought, 
invention, and effort. We find that nothing is for the 
individual alone. Whatever he gets or holds he must 
give and share. If he thinks alone, his thought comes 
to nothing; if he works alone, his work is of the least 
possible profit ; if he invents or discovers anything, he 
must add it to the common value. If he competes with 
his fellows, he has to combine with them also. The 
combinations grow more mighty and intricate. They 
bind together in more subtle bonds even those who seem 
to strive as rivals. In short, whatever man does must 
be lifted up and handed over for the common welfare. 
No one prospers who does not obey this law. Even the 
robber and the gambler, who sometimes seem for a little 
while to thrive in despoiling their fellows, fight hope- 
lessly against the Almighty. Where on the face of the 
earth are ill-gotten gains safe ? The avenging Nemesis, 
hardly to be propitiated, follows the man who preys on 
society. What is the manhood of such a man worth for 
himself ? or what honor will his name bring for his chil- 
dren? 



LUXURY AND SACRIFICE. 61 

Throughout the vast realm of industry and business 
the challenge to every man is, what can you do to meet 
human needs ? What can you give that man wants ? 
What can you contribute to the good of mankind ? The 
exception proves the rule. The quacks, the impostors, 
the low newspapers, the demagogues, are compelled to 
meet a human call or desire, even though it be short- 
lived, morbid, spurious, or childish. The demand creates 
a supply. The vicious supply can only be supplanted 
by a nobler and more intelligent demand. In the pres- 
ent half-civilized world, only struggling as yet into the 
consciousness of its divine destiny, the rule holds, never- 
theless, that the world " expects every man to do his 
duty," that is, to add something to the sum of its life. 
And the whole industrial system, faulty as it still is, is 
a parable of the working of this law. 



XVIII. 

Eternal Our parable leads us straightway to the 
Life. great spiritual conception of the meaning of 

human life. " What is life ? What are we here for ? " 
asks the child of the mother. Let us be very bold, and 
say that we are here for sacrifice, and that, too, daily and 
untiring. Then let us explain to the child that sacrifice 
is not loss or death, but it is turning everything in this 
human life into good ; it is making all things sacred, that 
is, devoting them to good. The life of sacrifice is life 
lived as if in the presence of God ; it is, therefore, sound, 
rich, restful, joyous. To stop evil and put good in its 
place, to spread light, to make love grow, — this is to live 
like God ; it is to find and to make heaven everywhere. 



62 LUXURY AND SACRIFICE. 



XIX. 

The Divine If we have caught the full meaning of 
?™?T2? S our subject, we must be impressed anew 

OF JjIFE. 

with the fact that the divine life — let us 
reverently venture to say, the life of God, and therefore 
the life of his children — is constituted of various ele- 
ments, not one of which can be dropped or neglected 
without impairing its goodness. Truth, Mind, the clear 
Intelligence, is one of these elements that make complete 
life. Justice, or Eighteousness, the stalwart moral 
sense, is another element. There is pure Joy in life, 
the delight in Beauty. There is the strain of Sorrow 
also, ever mysteriously blended with joy, without which 
sympathy could not be. As the colors of the rainbow, 
broken apart for the moment and revealed in their sep- 
arateness, all go together and make the glory of the 
white sunlight, so all the elements of life blend into 
the perfect harmony of Love, the infinite Good-will. 
Mankind is rising to the new consciousness, here and 
now, of this true and divine life. Every moment of 
earnest good-will in us reveals it like a flash. Jesus' 
name stands as the great personal illustration and pro- 
phetic object-lesson, — not to show, as men once taught, 
that this kind of life is hopelessly unique, — but to 
demonstrate that it is the universal type and order, 
imperative, therefore, for all the inhabitants of this 
world, as truly as for any other citizens of this majes- 
tic universe in the highest heavens where life may 
climb. 



LUXURY AND SACRIFICE. 63 



XX. 

The UNI- All the signs of the times point toward 

versal a t i ie manifestation of the sons of God." 
Religion. 

New material conditions, more pressing, com- 
plex, and interesting problems, even the strident voices 
of war, proclaiming that barbarism is still abroad in the 
earth, add force to the demand. The world is growing 
tired of a conventional religion of those who say, and do 
not ; it is urging upon schools, universities, churches, and 
sects its chivalrous call for men and women who, believ- 
ing in the living God, propose to act accordingly ; who, 
believing in the Golden Eule of Love, propose to make 
it the sovereign law of their lives. Already, far and near, 
no longer few, scattered, or depressed, but everywhere 
learning to find each other out, to hold each other's 
hands, to lift up their heads in confidence and courage, 
to win their friends to their faith, 

" There are in this loud, stunning tide 

Of human care and crime 
With whom the melodies abide 

Of the everlasting chime; 
"Who carry music in their heart 
Through dusty lane and wrangling mart, 
Plying their daily task with busier feet, 
Because their secret souls a holy strain repeat." 



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mSSSiml 0F CONGRESS 



019 971 911 7 







